Make notification banners less obtrusive with MiniBanners [jailbreak]

If you've got a jailbroken iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch and have never been a fan of notification banners or how they take up the entire top of the screen until they decide to roll away on their own, MiniBanners may be for you.

MiniBanners aims to make notification banners less obtrusive by miniaturizing them. You can choose what position you'd like them to show up in such as top left, center, or right or any other position on the screen as well as customizing the animation type. By default MiniBanners will only show the app name that's receiving the notification and a notification count. A long press on the banner will show a preview within the banner but the notification will not go away until you actually view it. This is a nice feature considering you'll still have the reminder in Notification Center in case you can't respond right away.

Inside the main Settings app you have quite a few options for customizing MiniBanners just the way you'd like. The options include changing the font color or background color, including transparent, as well as moving the notifications around and controlling the opacity of banners. The only issue I see with MiniBanners at present is that longer names in texts cut off and the badge count appears over it. While this isn't a huge deal, it can be rather annoying if design and presentation mean a lot to you. For regular apps it isn't an issue as app names typically aren't that long to begin with. The only time this issue really presents itself is with text messages where you've got a full first and last name stored for a contact.

Overall, MiniBanners not only works surprisingly well but brings a fresh take to notifications to your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. Whether you're tired of not being able to access the top status bar when a notification pops up or you've just grown bored with the regular old notification banners, you really can't go wrong with MiniBanners.